Caps won't sleep on Leafs

WASHINGTON -- Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau clearly doesn't see his next opponent the same way as most right-thinking hockey fans might.

Then again, speaking from experience thus far this season, the lively Washington coach has reason to have a contrarian view of the Maple Leafs, who visit the Verizon Center tonight.

The Caps have lost two of three meetings to the lowly Leafs thus far, a head scratcher given the wealth of talent on Boudreau's team and the inability most nights of Toronto shooters to score more than two goals.

"I don't know how they keep losing," Boudreau told the Washington Post yesterday. "They play very hard. They lead the league in shots on goal.

"They just haven't had success recently. I just hope they don't have success (today)."

Boudreau is being charitable, of course, but perhaps more than any coach in the league, he has reason to be wary. The Leafs, after all, have shown an odd knack for stepping up against the NHL's better teams.

After a 5-4 loss to the Caps here in the second game of the season, the Leafs upset Alex Ovechkin and company 2-1 and 6-3 in Air Canada Centre meetings on Nov. 21 and Dec. 12 respectively. A Leafs win tonight would give them a win in the season series for the first time since 2003-04.

Not that the Leafs have been an offence to fear, but the Caps have struggled defensively lately, giving up 11 goals over two nights in Florida this week.

Included in that mess was the oddity of starting goaltender Michal Neuvirth getting the hook on back-to-back nights.

It doesn't hurt that the Caps have a league-high nine players with double-digit goals. And in the unlikely event that the Leafs open up a big lead, they'll have to protect it against a team that has come back six times this season from a multi-goal deficit to win.

"It's not always just Ovie every night," said Capitals forward Jason Chimera, who came to Washington in a deal with Columbus last month. "It's nice other guys are scoring and can pick up the slack."